Why it happens:

http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/probl...s.htm#mailgone
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/...orruption.mspx

Recovering the missing data: http://www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx (#2 and #4).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DBXpress (faster, more powerful, with even greater functionality)
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Avoiding Such Corruption in Futu

- Don't use Inbox or Sent Items to archive messages. Move them to local
folders created for this purpose.

- Empty Deleted Items folder daily.

- Disable Background Compacting [not available in SP2] and frequently
perform a manual compact of all OE folders while "working offline". More at
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm

- WinXP SP2 only: Do not shut down your machine while Windows is
automatically compacting your message store.

- Your anti-virus application's email scanning feature can also cause such
corruption. Disable it. It provides no additional protection.
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE, OE, Security, Shell/User)
AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net
DTS-L http://dts-l.org/

Bill wrote:
Hi All,

Pretty sure that all I did was choose Compact under
ToolsOptionsMaintenanceClean Up, but what has happened is that I have
lost all my folder structures under Inbox and my Newsgroups have changed
massively and now only list a few of what I had and are listing some of
what
I unsubscribed to ages ago.

Searching for *dbx identifies some of the groups that I have lost even
though they are not appearing in OE.

Basically its a mess!

What is most important to me really I suppose, is my saved email messages,
which still seem to be there even though the folder structure has changed.

Would be nice to know what I might have done, but is there any way of
easily
recovering the situation or is a couple of hours sorting it all out?

Cheers.
Bill.